


A Little More Like Knocking

by soakyourskin



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: M/M, Post-Zayn One Direction
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-13
Updated: 2016-03-13
Packaged: 2018-05-26 13:20:24
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,396
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6240865
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/soakyourskin/pseuds/soakyourskin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Hi,” Zayn says again, voice steadier as he brings the arm he had tucked behind him forward, brown McDonald’s bag in his hand, and Liam remembers. And he breathes with the next line. “think you owe me for this.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Little More Like Knocking

**Author's Note:**

> This one is for the lovely [Nicole](http://irishpalatines.tumblr.com/) because she wanted to watch the world burn when she added to [this post](http://soakyourskin.tumblr.com/post/138996877974/irishpalatines-rightnxt2ziam). And, well, I kind of enjoy watching the world burn too.
> 
> Title's from Happiness by The Fray. Enjoy xx

It’s late when he hears the knock coming from the front door, quiet enough that if he weren’t still on the couch trying to pay attention to god knows what reality show is on now, he wouldn’t have noticed.

He does anyway because the raps sound familiar, soft and hesitant like whoever’s on the other side isn’t sure they really ought to be doing this.

This being knocking on Liam’s door at two in the morning.

He turns the volume of the telly down, closing his eyes as he listens for just a second. And it’s almost like feeling the weight of the fist on the door on his chest, pressing down on his lungs as he pictures who’s on the other side.

It’s not Louis on his mind when he takes a deep breath right before he stands. Louis doesn’t knock. Probably has no idea about the concept of it to ever consider going that route instead of barging in Liam’s flat using keys that still to this day, Liam has no idea how he ever managed to get a hold of.

It’s not Harry on his mind either, as he starts the slow walk to his door, heartbeat loud in his ears. Harry doesn’t do tentative. Doesn’t do quiet, or anything less than a booming  _ my feet are freezing Liam, so if you would be so kind. _ Not in the middle of the night, and not when he’s bringing lunch over to a very tired, very hungover Liam.

He turns the lock, and it’s definitely not Niall he’s picturing on the other side. Couldn’t possibly be Niall, when the hallway outside isn’t echoing the timber of his voice as he sings  _ slowly walking down the hall, faster than a cannonball,  _ drumming a beat against the wood all the while.

Liam holds his breath when the knocking stops; holds it until it starts back up, even quieter now, pauses between each tap precise, like they’re counting.

_ Tap. _

It’s not Louis.

_ Tap. _

It’s not Harry.

_ Tap. _

It’s not Niall.

Liam holds his breath as he opens the door and—

“Hi,” Zayn says on an exhale, like he’d been holding on as long as Liam had been, eyes bright and blown wide, cheeks stained red with more than the late night breeze.

Liam knows why, of course he does.

He’d listened to the song the moment Zayn sent him a raw version of it with  _ fancy a listen? _ attached, a few months back. Listened to it again, the proper one, when it came out, and had  _ fucking siick, mate!! U did itt x Li _ —saved in his drafts for about as long.

He can’t help the smile that spreads across his face, calms the storm thundering through his veins, when he sees it returned.

“Hi,” Zayn says again, voice steadier as he brings the arm he had tucked behind him forward, brown McDonald’s bag in his hand, and Liam remembers. And he breathes with the next line. “think you owe me for this.”

 

 

“That is honestly the most _disgusting_ thing I’ve ever seen you do with your food,” Liam says with a laugh, eyeing the ketchup Zayn squirts on top of his barbecue sauce warily, nose scrunched up with a mixture of awe and disgust. “and I remember the apple slaughter of 2013.”

Zayn laughs as he bumps his shoulder against Liam’s, and—it’s familiar.

Liam feels the small, fond smile that blooms on his face when Zayn picks at his fries, grabbing the shortest, crispiest one to mix the two sauces together.

He looks up at Liam with a triumphant grin when he’s done, eyebrows raised as he brings the fry up to Liam’s mouth, a challenge in the crook of his smile that Liam takes with a roll of his eyes, mouth opening to take the crisp in.

“Good innit?” asks Zayn, taking a bite from a newly dipped fry he took from the pile on Liam’s table.

Liam chuckles as he grabs three at once for himself, dipping them into the sauce before biting half of each off.

“Yeah yeah, I give,” he says with a nod, watching Zayn’s smile grow into the one he knows best, tongue tucked in behind his teeth, eyes almost buried with the crinkles that surround them. “who’s the genius behind this, then?”

“Malay,” Zayn replies with an easy smile, pride in his voice as he says the name.

Liam nods along, and this part, this new part of Zayn that he hasn’t had a chance to know yet, name falling easily off Zayn’s tongue, sounding unfamiliar as it reaches Liam’s ears, reminds him what tonight’s really for.

“I’m proud of you,” he says after a comfortable silence has fallen upon them. He feels the way his cheeks heat up with the blush that colors his face, sees the same way Zayn’s does. “I’m not—I don’t know if I’ve ever actually said, like. And I know you don’t need to hear it from me, I  _ know _ that. I just…”

He expects the tension to coat his skin, fill the room but Zayn looks up at him then, and his smile guides the breath in and out of Liam’s lungs.

“You’re right. I don’t need to hear it from you,” Zayn says softly. “but it’s nice to know anyway. That I didn’t, like—that I didn’t leave for nothing.”

“Zayn…”

“No, that’s not what I—” he says with an exasperated laugh, hand coming up to scrub at his face. “I don’t regret leaving, and I don’t regret choosing myself either. And having you lot behind me, telling me that it was alright to, made it easier, didn’t it?”

He looks up at Liam then, eyes wide, sound audible when he swallows. Liam follows the movement and learns to breathe with him.

“But it fucking terrified me anyway, knowing what I was leaving behind,” Zayn says as his eyes flicker to Liam’s quickly before looking away.

“You didn’t leave us behind,” Liam insists. Always insists because this is what was hardest for Zayn to understand, even before he left; what kept him for so long before he decided.

And  _ this  _ especially, what Liam’s unsure to say now.

He does anyway.

“And you didn’t—I never thought you’d left me behind. Zayn,” he calls out, waits until Zayn looks at him. “I said, didn’t I? I told you I won’t mind so long as you’re happy.”

It takes a second, but Liam sees Zayn visibly relax at his words, and he misses that, he realises. Misses having the ability to calm Zayn down, having what he says be enough.

It’s enough now.

“It’s you, y’know,” Zayn says after a while, quiet like even the night shouldn’t be privy to what he’s about to say next. “it’s still you. Even after everything. Even after you’d said...”

Liam nods when Zayn trails off, words rough when he repeats what he’d told him before he left, so many months ago, “even after I’d said if you were leaving to be free, you had to be free of everything, including—”

“Including you,” Zayn cuts off.

“Yeah.”

He’s suddenly, acutely aware that Zayn’s moved closer as they were talking, so close that their knees are touching, and it’s almost funny how such simple a contact now makes the breath in his throat catch when he’s felt Zayn in just about every way possible before.

Liam looks up, and  _ oh _ —Zayn’s watching him intently, brows furrowed, the brown of his eyes dark, and Liam knows him too well, still. Knows what every look means, what he’s meant to say with it, what he's about to.

“Nothing’s changed for me, though,” Zayn says, makes Liam draw in a sharp breath as he watches Zayn’s face move that much closer, so much closer, and Liam just  _ wants. _

“Not the first time we tried it, not the second time, and not when you decided that it was what was best for me, either,” he continues, and that’s his hand coming up to cup the side of Liam’s face. That’s Zayn’s warmth seeping into his cool skin, holding him there. “we kept trying for easy, and you kept trying to save me but I never needed any of that. I only ever wanted you.”

It’s impossible to breathe with the way his heart has expanded in his chest but the catch of Zayn’s fingertips against the scruff lining his face helps.

“I didn’t—I wasn’t looking for easy. Or a way out,” he gives as he takes Zayn’s hand from his face, curls his own around it and rests it on his lap, watches the way Zayn fits his fingers where they’re used to being, the hollows in between Liam's. “I wanted us.”

_ But, _ hangs in the air, thick and hot and the kind that sticks to the skin, and he feels Zayn squeeze tight where they’re tangled together, wringing the words from his tongue.

“But I didn’t want to give you a reason to stay because—because that’s what I was. That’s what I was, and that’s what we were turning into, innit? Another reason for you not to go? Another reason to keep you there when I knew it was eating at you to stay, like nothing else. And you kept looking to me for answers. You kept—you kept wanting for every reason to leave. Any reason to let you know that it was okay what you were doing, that you were doing this for yourself. And you had it, and. And I was the only thing holding you back.”

A pause to breathe around what he’d said.

A pause to take it all in.

A pause to shatter the calm.

And then.

“You fucking idiot.”

Liam’s head snaps up at that, mouth going dry when he feels Zayn pull his hand away.

_ No, _ he’s about to say,  _ don’t. _

But—

“You goddamn idiot, Liam—” he hears before white noise fills his ears.

It ought to be hard, he thinks distantly. It ought to be punishing, the way their lips meet, the way they kiss like the nights leading up to Zayn leaving were.

It ought to be brutal, and unrelenting, and rough like the way they clung desperately to each other, trying to hold on to what they both knew was such a fragile, breakable thing was.

But it isn't now.

It feels like Zayn always had, to Liam. Soft, and tender, and seeking, always, for reciprocation that Liam never bothered deny him.

“You dick,” Zayn breathes out when he pulls away after a long while, forehead resting against Liam’s as he tries to catch his breath. “you asshole. You fucking prick. You arse. You—”

“I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Christ— _ I love you. _ I'm sorry,” Liam mumbles against his lips when he pulls Zayn back in, quieting Zayn’s insults and his own apologetic ramblings.

Zayn lets him, shaky exhale cool on Liam’s cheeks before he feels the gentle press of Zayn’s lips against his.

He brings his hand up, places it on the back of Zayn’s neck and draws him even closer, thumb brushing against the pulse near his jaw, feeling the steady thrum of it, and Liam understands.

It ought to feel like fireworks all over again. Or at least a tingle that spikes through his whole body, licks at his nerves, fries his brain like it did the first time they kissed.

But—

It doesn’t feel like that at all.

It just feels like getting a piece of himself back, like his body is only just realising that it hadn’t been properly fine the last couple of months. That all it takes to make up for it now is  _ this, _ the press of Zayn’s body, Zayn’s lips against his, the heat of him travelling through to Liam, easing the pull-push of air in his lungs, slowing his breathing, his beating to a quiet— _ it’s fine. You’re fine. He’s here now. _

“I’m sorry,” he repeats when the feel of Zayn underneath his fingers starts to become familiar again. Pulling back enough to kiss the expanse of his face, he presses his lips to Zayn’s cheeks and nose and the fold of his eyelids even as he continues to mumble apologies across his skin.

Zayn huffs after a while, impatient as he pushes Liam’s face off his own, grabbing at him with both hands, holding him tightly as he pulls him in for a proper kiss. Liam tries to speak in between every single one of them—an  _ I’m sorry, _ or  _ I love you, _ or a mix of both that almost finds its way out every time, until Zayn whines and bites at his bottom lip, pulling it into his mouth and shutting Liam up, finally.

“Shut up,” groans Zayn as he tongues at the mark his teeth left on Liam, pausing in between kisses just enough to get his words out. “just—just let me have this, okay? Just shut your fucking mouth and let me  _ kiss _ you, God. Do you’ve any idea that you talk—I miss your lips, I’ve missed you. Fucking— _ Christ, _ I love you. I love you so much, and you talk too bloody much, so just. Just shut up.”

Liam thinks about laughing.

Then he thinks about pulling away to say that he’s doesn’t, that they just need to—they need to talk about this. He needs to talk about this because it’s been far too long, far longer than he can handle since he’s last had a chance to talk it out, make sense of this, of  _ them. _

He goes to do it too, separates just enough that he can’t feel the heat coming off of Zayn’s body in waves anymore, just enough that when he opens his eyes Zayn’s are as clear as ever, right in front of his, and—well.

Liam knows him far too well, still.

It takes a pause for him to swallow down his words.

Breathing out, breathing in, he follows the sound of Zayn’s own hollow intakes, follows until he feels every shallow exhale against his lips.

Out. In. Out. In.

_ Enough, _ he thinks, as he leans in and feels the words, and the noise, and the months away be replaced by the quiet assurance of  _ Zayn  _ and  _ here, _ and he lets Zayn have this.

In. Out. In. Out.

And he lets himself have this.  
  


**Author's Note:**

> This isn't finished. Or, it's not supposed to be but I'm a lazy arse, and if I don't post this now I won't ever bleh


End file.
